Arthur Davidsen

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Arthur Davidsen, American astrophysicist (born May 26, 1944, Freeport, N.Y.—died July 19, 2001, Baltimore, Md.), was a leading researcher in the fields of high-energy astrophysics and ultraviolet space astronomy. After service in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, Davidsen earned a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. That year he joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where he spent the rest of his career. Davidsen oversaw the construction of the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), a project he began in 1979 to study intergalactic space. HUT was carried aboard the space shuttleColumbia in 1990 and the space shuttle Endeavour in 1995. From 1985 to 1988 Davidsen served as the founding director of the Center for Astrophysical Sciences at Johns Hopkins. He was also credited with persuading NASA to locate its Space Telescope Science Institute on the university campus.